Monday, September 17, 2012

Over two decades, the Boy Scouts of America failed to report hundreds of alleged child molesters to police and often hid the allegations from parents and the public.

A Los Angeles Times review of 1,600 confidential files dating from 1970 to 1991 has found that Scouting officials frequently urged admitted offenders to quietly resign — and helped many cover their tracks.

Volunteers and employees suspected of abuse were allowed to leave citing bogus reasons such as business demands, "chronic brain dysfunction" and duties at a Shakespeare festival.

The details are contained in the organization's confidential "perversion files," a blacklist of alleged molesters, that the Scouts have used internally since 1919. Scouts' lawyers around the country have been fighting in court to keep the files from public view.

As The Times reported in August, the blacklist often didn't work: Men expelled for alleged abuses slipped back into the program, only to be accused of molesting again. Now, a more extensive review has shown that Scouts sometimes abetted molesters by keeping allegations under wraps.

Ban homosexuals from joining their organization and condemn their lifestyle? Check!

38 comments:

I just reread this post and I have to admit I am being a little harsh. Though considering this new information perhaps I am not being harsh enough.

Look both the Boy Scouts of America and the Catholic Church have done some great humanitarian things for the country and for the world.

However the fact that they have placed the protection of their reputations over the protection of the children entrusted to them, is an indictment on both of their organizations, and undermines the positive work for which they are known.

You said nothing harsh enough. Two of my childhood friends were abused by the scout leader and his eagle scout son. I was two years younger and looking forward to leaving Cub Scouts for BSA. I left instead and never looked back. Those boys lives were ruined as they were shouted down, humiliated and otherwise cast out of the neighborhood for "ratting" out the "beloved family man" and "good Christian" who "did his work because of his love of children". yeah right.

My brother had a pedophile for a scout master. To make matters worse, it was the Boy Scout troop from our local Catholic Church. My mother suspected the guy and was responsible for him being ousted from the troop. At the time, no one believed her assertions that the man was a pedophile, but he resigned anyways and moved away.(Of course, he was married with children and in those days, it was thought to be impossible for a married man to be a pedophile.) Luckily, my brother was not molested, but some of his friends were. He revealed all this when the former scout master was charged with molestation in another scout troop in another town.

Since then, I have always suspected that the Boy Scouts has been a haven for pedophiles and, like the Catholic Church, the Scouts protect the pedophiles. How many more are out there, ruining young men's lives?

Note: The Mormon Church is slowly taking over the Boy Scouts. They have been putting their people in who have been slowly moving up the administrative hierarchy of the Boy Scouts organization. There are also a lot of troops sponsored by the boy scouts. They've even got a program to make sure all their Mormon boys make Eagle Scout, even if they have to cheat to do it.

Yeah, I was going to point that out. There are some awful stories of child molesting in the Mormon Church, but because they train their members to be so tight lipped about everything else, no one says anything. My family found out that my older sister's sunday school teacher was excommunicated for pedophilia, and yet a few months later he was at one of the ward dinners (church dinner), and my stepdad got really pissed off that he wasn't thrown out.

That is the way the LDS church does it every where. In business, in government, and in social organizations they instill or run their people, vote en masse, and win. The did this in my tiny town when the company hired a LDS CEO. Eventually all the top management was LDS, they pressured people to join the church or forced those out who would not. It ended when the idiot CEO screwed the company almost to the point of bankruptcy. Out the lot of them went but lives had already been ruined.BEWARE, Willard M Romney as president will do the exact same thing as the LDS is doing to the scouts and ever other damned thing they touch.

Wow. I teach music lessons and was constantly taken advantage of my a talented student's parents. They changed times at the last minute, failed to pay for weeks at a time, and were sweet as pie when I saw them. One son just returned from mission and is back at BYU with my student, and they have another in France, and twin boys waiting to be indoctrinated. And they are all Boy Scouts. Of course. Dad was fired from a local company and is now a substitute teacher. Mom is the breadwinner, working as a middle school teacher.

"So WHAT is the difference between the Boy Scouts and the Catholic Church again?"

well... there is a theory... less than a theory, mind you, perhaps 'thought experiment' is a better phrase, that ponders whether there could be any possible 'benefit' to persistent, wide-spread child abuse by an organization claiming a higher spiritual plane and demanding its leaders vow a lifetime of celibacy.

Is it too much a stretch to wonder if some level of child abuse is tolerated - 'encouraged' is probably too strong a word - in the cruel and cynical hopes that psychologically damaged children might be better candidates to assume future leadership roles in the organization? Factor in the likelihood that existing pedophiles were abused as children.

The organization then, perversely, offers a sanctuary for abuse victims by recruiting them into the organization for lives of prayer, service, contemplation and freedom from the demands of a normal social life - made traumatic by abuse from within the same organization.

Exactly. The general intended purpose of the organization had good intentions. My grandfather was a boy scout leader for 40+ years and I've never met anyone I admire more as a person. But an inability to progress along with societal changes in a timely manner leaves such organizations back in the stone age. Women belong in the kitchen, gays are evil, etc etc etc. In organizations that encourage that kind of dangerous brainwashing, there is always OTHER kinds of brainwashing going on. Brother So-an-So is a pedophile? Well, God will sort him out; we don't want to out him because he'll make our organization look dangerous. Besides, look at all the good we're doing for little old ladies wanting to cross the road safely! They justify their selfish misplaced inaction and in the meanwhile predators are encouraged further because hey, they got away with it, didn't they? Why not try again with a different troop? I mean, in the event you get caught, they're not going to turn you in, right?And that's the same shit, day in and day out.

Gryphen, the above link is a PBS award winning documentary about what happened in a small town in Idaho where a reporter uncovered a sexual child abuse scandal with the boy scouts and the mormon church. One of Mitt Romney's Super Donars (One-Million Dollars), Frank Vandersloot outed the reporter as gay to discredit him and took out full page ads in the local newspaper attacking the newspaper and the victims of the abuse. It is a MUST SEE. I lived there during this time, and it still haunts me.

A lot of those camps the LDS runs for way ward youth are nothing more than farms for pedophiles. Romney has a connection to several of them. Not saying he is a pedophile, but he knows people who are and works with them.

MSNBC Alex Wagner gave an opening show teaser about the battles between the Mexican drug cartel & Mormons -- including the Romney Clan.

Holy Crappola!! This should be interesting!!

And a reminder to people of an earlier Romney foreign policy 'step in it'. He blasted the Administration on the issue of the Chinese dissident -- this while Hillary was in the midst of 'heightened' negotiations. As per usual - Romney had no knowledge or facts as the matter was ongoing and the info was certainly not publicly known. As we all know -- Hillary was successful -- of course!!!

This appears to have dropped off the radar of his 'shooting first, aim later' radar screen when the pundits list his failings. This adds to his failings in foreign policy that he opens mouth, inserts both feet before he engages brain. Oh right -- you'd have to have a brain to engage it.

I keep saying, I hope the debate moderators have time and persistence, because Mittens is not going to want to answer ANY specific questions about anything at all. He will try to use his time to batter Obama..again.

Mohammed was a pedophile too. Do some research into it. This was in the anti-Islam film that inflamed the middle east.I really believe a lot of religions have scary histories if you look deeply. Joseph Smith, who was the Morman prophet, said incredibly nasty things about black people.

After the BSA was co-opted by the religious right, in addition to banning gays, the BSA also banned atheists. No point in allowing freethinkers in the organization. By contrast, the Girl Scout organization takes no position on gay or atheist membership.

I have been second guessing myself lately, wishing I had encouraged my son to pursue a goal of becoming an Eagle Scout after he "crossed over" from Cub Scouts to Boy Scouts. It's college application time for him, and I know it would have been a real plus. But when we moved shortly afterward, any and all questions I asked of scout leaders in this area were scoffed at, and in fact I was told that it was time for mom to back off and let them make him a man. I kid you not. No contact with his father (a blessing, actually) and being raised an only child by an "over-protective" mom... but I didn't care for the response I got when I asked even the most basic questions about one-on-one camping etc.

Now, I'm glad I I was cautious. No advantage on a college app would have been worth the risk.

It's not just the Boy Scouts or the Church. We're finding this was happening in just about every setting where there are kids entrusted to adults. Sport programs, camps, schools. Sad and frightening. One has to keep a close eye one the children. This sort of news has been eye opening to many of us.

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This blog is dedicated to finding the truth, exposing the lies, and holding our politicians and leaders accountable when they fall far short of the promises that they have made to both my fellow Alaskans and the American people.